


Crystalline

by Asallia



Category: Love Live! School Idol Project, Love Live! Sunshine!!
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Character Study, Drinking, F/F, Heart-to-Heart, Hurt/Comfort, Introspection, Love Confessions, Mental Health Issues, Post-Canon, Suicidal Thoughts, but i promise there's a light at the end of the tunnel, just a whole lot of angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-11
Updated: 2020-07-11
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:41:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25209385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Asallia/pseuds/Asallia
Summary: “You don’t understand, Dia. This town is dying.” Kanan spoke solemnly, each and every syllable its own eulogy. “No Kurosawa can save it, and you shouldn’t bother trying. Might as well put it out of its misery instead of wasting your time on it.”--Dia returns home, and Kanan bares her soul.
Relationships: Kurosawa Dia/Matsuura Kanan, some hints of kanadiamari
Comments: 25
Kudos: 53





	Crystalline

**Author's Note:**

> Hey :)
> 
> Last September, at the start of an extended low point, I found the first few paragraphs of this fic buried in my notes app. I don't know when I wrote them or what my intent was, but I recognized them as a springboard for some much-needed catharsis for both me and my favs. Nearly a year of very stopgap work later, and this oneshot is the result. I recognize that it's heavy, but I promise that this isn't (just) angst for angst's sake - I want them to have their happy ending, after all, if a realistic one.
> 
> The themes in this fic took some heavy inspiration from Caracara, a band whose work has come to mean a lot to me - it wasn't hard to see Kanan in many of their songs in the process. If you'd like a soundtrack while you read, [here's](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3eAJDq5DFt0i7Pujhty4nr) the playlist I was listening to as I worked on this. Lots of Caracara and other emo bands abound, because I'm shameless like that.
> 
> The most important shoutout of all, of course, goes to the wonderful [Ottermelon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ottermelon) for beta-reading this and helping me tighten it up. If you like this, please go read [his own third-years fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22727113). Nobody quite Gets It™ like he does - I promise you won't be disappointed. :')
> 
> Lastly, please mind the tags. This fic involves discussion of suicidal ideation - please don't read if you're uncomfortable with that.

Every once in a while, when things were slow enough for Dia to stop her suffocating work schedule and take a few deep breaths, she'd hop on a shinkansen bound for Nuzamu and get a town car to the family home in Uchiura. Her pilgrimages never lasted long, merely two days or so, but they were enough to get her through the motions.

She'd pay respect to her parents and to their workers, of course. She was obligated as the daughter of the _amimoto_ family to do so, regardless of her lack of involvement with the family businesses.

She'd spend some time with Ruby as well, doting and fussing over her as she thought a good older sister should. She'd even try to engage Ruby in girl talk, awkward as it may have been for her. Given the distance between them, those hours spent together were invaluable.

But as much as it pained her to admit it, time with family and business was only prologue to the part of each trip she looked forward to more than any other. After she had paid her obligations, Dia would sneak out and take yet another town car bound for the ferry to Awashima, where she’d inevitably find Kanan at the dive shop. She’d always pop by the counter with a warm smile on her face, and Kanan would always act surprised when Dia produced a reservation to the nicest seafood restaurant in Nuzamu.

These routines were comforting and familiar to her, a far cry from the overwhelming life of a businesswoman in the jungle of Tokyo. She had long ago honed her relationships here to a knife's edge, most of all with her oldest friend, and she savored how in control she felt.

She knew she and Kanan would have one too many glasses of sake. Well, that was a lie; _she_ would have one too many, and Kanan would hold back, knowing perfectly well that she'd need to take a stumbling Dia home and tuck her in bed. Dia would spend the ride back telling Kanan every silly little thought going through her head, and Kanan would always listen before saying the same thing with an exaggerated sigh.

"You're thinking too much, Dia."

Dia would furrow her brows and think about that, think some more about thinking, and then she'd give up and look out the window towards the bay, serene and tranquil as the waves rolled gently and lapped at the shoreline. She didn't know anything other than that constant whirlwind of calculation, having always been the part of their little trio most inclined towards mental gymnastics.

After all, she was the brains, Mari was the heart, and Kanan was the wisdom - it was just the natural order of things, she supposed, that they existed to keep each other in check like that. Most people wouldn't know it, but Kanan had something serene about her, like a modern day Chuang Tzu. Of course, Chuang Tzu probably hadn't had a six pack or the mouth of a sailor, but that was just part of Kanan's... charm, perhaps.

Dia turned her head back to Kanan, who kept her vision glued to the dashboard of her run-down pickup truck, expressionless.

"How have you been, Kanan-san?"

Kana’s eyes widened, seemingly in surprise that Dia was capable of being anything other than in her own feelings at the current moment. The shock melted into a frown next, if only for a split second, before her mouth curled back up into her usual lazy smile. Dia never liked it when Kanan did that, like she was hiding some secret Dia would never get to know. It made her feel helpless, when Kanan was supposed to be her anchor. Reliable. Honest.

"Business has been pretty slow, I guess. That time of year and all. Chika and You dropped by to dive last week, though. That was nice."

Now it was Dia's turn to frown, face contorted into an indignant, drunken pout. "That's _what_ you're doing, not how.”

Kanan laughed, as if she’d known perfectly well that Dia would see through the thin veneer she had created. Maybe it was meant to be see-through, Dia thought to herself absently, but then she remembered Kanan telling her not to think so much.

“You really shouldn’t feel obligated to ask,” Kanan suggested. “You do it enough as is.”

Dia didn’t reply, instead taking her time to mull over those words as they passed by the old dock outside of Chika’s place. Dia stared at those warm, comforting lights shining out from each window, and thought back to their old days writing songs and laughing together. Hell, wasn’t it around the time for spring break? Chika had probably just arrived home from Numazu that week, passing away the interim before a new term by tending to the ryokan or watching old µ's blu-rays. It’d been a while since they talked, Dia noted to herself with a hint of regret. She considered texting Chika while she was here, but the thought passed by as quickly as the lights of the ryokan receded from view.

“You’re my friend, Kanan-san,” Dia finally responded in her favorite matter-of-fact voice. “I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t want to know the answer. And you _never_ give me the answer, so consider this your sentence.” She added a righteous _hmph_ for good measure, just to drive the point home.

“Right.” Kanan’s fingers drummed against the top of the steering wheel one by one, nails jagged and worn down - from overwork or biting, Dia couldn’t quite tell. Silence hung in the air yet again as they drove, the hypnotic rumble of tires against pavement only occasionally punctuated by the sharp _click_ of the shift stick as Kanan changed gears to match Uchiura’s hilly terrain.

On the perch in front of the radio, long since busted, Kanan had precariously balanced her phone with the screen facing out. It was playing some indie song with English lyrics, the kind that Dia could only imagine Mari showing her; the singer’s voice was thick and soupy enough that Dia couldn’t quite make any of the words out, even with all her education in the language. The music sounded tinny and weak coming from the phone’s speakers, but it was enough that it at least gave Dia something to focus on during the lengthy silence.

She made a mental note to send Kanan a new sound system for Christmas. Kanan would like that, probably.

Eventually, though, even the music wasn’t enough to save Dia from the insidiously anxious thoughts bubbling up in her head. She picked up an empty can of some energy drink she’d never heard of that had been sitting discarded in the cupholder. She palmed it in her hands and turned it around, examining each element of its brash design as if the key to Kanan’s mind lay hidden somewhere in its nutritional information. It wasn’t, of course, and Dia set it back down before long.

Kanan only looked at her, a wry smile on her face. “Want one? Might not be good to mix that with the booze, though-”

“What’s going on, Kanan-san?”

The smile on Kanan’s face didn’t quite evaporate when Dia spoke, but her eyes deflected back to the road. “You’re really not going to let that go, huh?”

“Nope,” Dia replied as her head lolled backwards, finding its place against the worn leather of the headrest. She let the P pop with a satisfying conclusiveness, her own way of telling Kanan that she was in control here. Maybe it was just the sake, but she wanted proof she could steer this conversation away from Kanan’s deflections, even if both the sentiment and execution were a tad childish.

“Alright,” Kanan finally conceded with a sigh that carried exhaustion in its wake. “It’s been a while since we had a heart to heart or some bullshit like that.” She began to pull over onto a turnoff that looked out over the ocean, turning to Dia to give her one of those trademark overconfident grins, the ones that Dia loathed and reveled in. “When was the last time you hung out on the beach?”

~=O=~

“Why is it that every meaningful conversation ever had in this town happens on a beach at sunset?”

Kanan laughed at the unprompted comment as the two of them slipped off their shoes - heels for Dia, a pair of hand-me-down loafers for Kanan.

“Well, where the fuck else would anyone go this time of night? All there is around here is sand.” Kanan bent over and grabbed a handful for effect before tossing it back into the wind. “Makes me wonder why you ever come back,” she added quietly. If there was bitterness in her words, it was carefully hidden beneath the veneer of an apathetic inflection.

With the car parked and stowed away in an empty lot above, Dia made her way across the rocks that seperated the concrete from the beach, holding her hands out to her sides for balance. Kanan watched from behind, only rushing to her side when the sake inevitably got to Dia’s head and caused her to tip over with a loud yelp. She succumbed to gravity’s force quickly, but the fall was broken by Kanan, who wasted no time in picking her up bridal-style despite Dia’s indignant protests.

Eventually, Dia gave up the act and settled down. The frozen bite of the wind prompted her head to nuzzle itself up against the crook of Kanan’s neck as she was carried all the way to the tidemark. As the wind began to whip up, Kanan’s body warmth felt like safe harbor. Dia had always taken solace in Kanan’s dependability, but this single moment felt like a microcosm of their relationship, Kanan so ready and willing to sweep her off the ground at a moment’s notice of danger. She reveled in that, now more so than ever, but something else bugged her.

“Do you really think there isn’t a good reason to visit Uchiura?” she asked in a voice uncharacteristically tender. Just within her peripheral vision, Dia caught the corners of Kanan’s cracked lips tugging downward.

“If there was,” Kanan muttered in an indecipherable tone, “I wouldn’t be the only person left here.”

Dia winced at the elephant in the room, far too familiar with the way Aqours had drifted apart over the years. What few people were left in the area had made their way to Numazu, where there was at least some semblance of opportunity and excitement - even then, the majority of their group had been flung far and wide, Dia included. Only Ruby remained in Uchiura with Kanan, but not without commuting to Numazu for university classes.

“Kanan-san, is that what this is about?” Dia glanced up at Kanan with a worried look, but Kanan didn’t grant it any attention. Instead, her eyes remained locked on the horizon as she gently leaned an arm down, allowing Dia’s feet to kiss the sand below. Once she was upright Dia wiggled her toes, savoring how cool the now-retreated tide had left the sand under her feet. “I can visit more,” she added in an attempted reassurance that sounded rather lame as it left her parted lips.

Kanan let out a stilted laugh, though the sound of joy was nowhere to be found in it.

“No, that’s not the point. I’m used to being alone. It sucks, but…” Kanan’s voice trailed off as she scrutinized the pinks and oranges setting the sky aflame. She looked bored after only a few seconds, however, and planted herself on the ground. After patting the space beside her, Dia did the same. “Well, maybe that _is_ the point. I don’t really know anymore.” As her legs retracted towards her body, she wrapped her arms around her knees.

“You know that I’m going to be moving home someday to run the business, right? I’ll be back soon enough.”

“What, so you can idle away the rest of your life, trapped here just to say you were a good daughter?”

Dia frowned. “Good _lord_ , Kanan-san, will you not give me some credit? There’s more on my mind than my family or how much there is to do in Uchiura,” she shot back.

“You don’t understand, Dia. This shitty-ass town is dying.” Kanan spoke solemnly, each and every syllable its own eulogy. “No Kurosawa can save it, and you shouldn’t bother trying. Might as well put it out of its fucking misery instead of wasting your time on it.”

Hearing those words, Dia suddenly found herself wringing her hands. She was scared of the callousness with which Kanan spoke of the town that birthed them, scared of that small glimmer of disdain that had peeked its head above the surface of Kanan’s heart. More than anything else, she was scared of the time of her life it conjured in the recesses of her memory.

Yet before Dia could object to any of it, Kanan retracted further into her little ball, head resting face-down against her thighs as if to be shielded from view. “Sorry,” she added in a muffled voice. “Sorry. I just… could we change the subject? To you?”

Dia sighed, scooching herself closer with what little subtlety she could muster and rubbing a hand up and down Kanan’s back. A drunken burst of rashness had her opening her mouth, nearly confronting the outburst Kanan had just let loose, but she’d learned long ago that even Kanan - hell, _especially_ Kanan - had stubborn moments. It was best not to press further for the time being, so she let it slip.

“I guess, but I did just spend an entire dinner ranting to you about work,” she finally replied with a humored laugh to mask her worries. “I doubt you’d want to hear more about it.”

Kanan lifted her head up, slightly, to turn to Dia. “Well, I want to hear about Dia my best friend, not Dia the suit.”

“Fair enough.” Dia smiled wryly. “I’ve been managing, I suppose. It’s hard with all the people and noise, but living in Tokyo has been rewarding. I feel like I’m slowly making something out of myself, without the help of my family. You know how important that is to me.”

“Yeah,” Kanan replied wistfully. She tilted herself to the side, enough to playfully bump her shoulder against Dia’s own. “Proud of you. I know it’s been rough.” She paused, let out a faint laugh. “Been taking the subway much?”

Dia instantly paled. “Of- of course. Of course I do. Why wouldn’t I?” she sputtered, despite herself. That she didn’t scratch her beauty mark was a product of years of training.

“Never change, Dia,” Kanan replied, now making no attempt to hide her laughter. “I wish I could go into all those fancy business meetings you have and tell everyone about how much of a baby you are. Remember when you used to start bawling whenever your parents picked you up from sleepovers at my place?”

Dia huffed, not thrilled in the slightest about the reminder of how she used to be, before she had to be strong for her family and for her friends. At the same time, if anyone could share those memories, she was glad it could be Kanan.

“They must be pretty happy that you’re out studying in Tokyo,” Kanan added quietly. “Not many people around here make it in a place like that. Then again, if it was going to be somebody…”

Dia chuckled under her breath. “It was always going to be a Kurosawa.”

“Yeah, exactly,” Kanan replied. There was a brief pause, a thoughtful silence that lingered in the air. “Must be a hell of a place to live, huh?”

Dia gave a noncommittal shrug, and her shoulders sagged with the weight of expectations that comes from living in Tokyo. She suddenly understood how Riko must have felt all those years ago when she’d first moved here.

“It’s nice,” she confirmed, albeit tepidly. “There’s no shortage of things to do, even if I have to have someone drag me to most of them.” She laughed for good measure.

“You’re putting all those fancy Tokyo friends of yours to good use, I see,” Kanan replied playfully. Dia’s smile faltered - the way Kanan had spoken seemed almost standoffish despite its tone, but she was probably thinking too much.

“They’re nothing special,” she replied. “They just happen to live in a big city.”

“Well, still. Nightlife, friends to take you out? Sounds nice,” Kanan concluded. “I’m glad you’re making the most of living somewhere with that many people.”

Dia looked at Kanan with a raised eyebrow, but was only offered a shrug in turn.

“More people isn’t necessarily a good thing, you know.”

Kanan waved an arm around them, the action carrying something vaguely caustic in its motions. “Have you seen this place? I can count on one hand how many kids anyone in this town has had in a month.” She leaned back, letting the back of her head kiss the sand as she began gazing upward. For once, Dia didn’t mirror her movements, instead opting to watch each shimmer of light reflected in the violet of Kanan’s eyes.

“Sorry,” Dia finally muttered, her thoughts having been briefly stolen away by the sight. “You’re right. It’s easy for me to say that when I’m used to all the signs of life, after all.”

Kanan cracked something that resembled a smile, if Dia squinted enough.

“Yeah, not many of those anymore. This place could use a few blondes flying in on pink helicopters. That’d keep it interesting.”

Dia felt herself tense up a bit, if only slightly. “Oh were we all that lucky,” she replied in a humorously sarcastic tone, hoping Kanan didn’t notice her miss a beat. She pointed an eye roll at Kanan for good measure, one that felt overly theatrical in a way that only Mari Ohara warranted. “Since you mention Mari-san, by the way, I have a story for you.”

“Oh god, what did she do this time?”

Dia laughed. “No, no, it was good. I met Eli Ayase recently.”

Kanan’s eyes widened, that small snippet evidently enough to finish dragging her out of rock bottom spirits.

“What!? That’s amazing! How come I haven’t heard about this?”

“Because it’s embarrassing,” Dia replied with a sheepish laugh. A hand reached idly for the back of her neck to scratch at it.

“Well?” By now Kanan had turned to Dia, leering. “Spill the tea for me. Gossip ain’t exactly easy to come by these days.”

“Fair enough,” Dia agreed with a laugh. She was sober enough by now to deftly weave a story so typical of her and Mari, of a glamorous gala hosted by the Ohara International Tokyo, champagne and crystal chandeliers and upper crust as far as the eye could see. It was the kind of environment Dia had never quite felt at home in, but…

“When Mari asks, you don’t say no,” Kanan interjected with an empathetic smile.

“When Mari-san asks,” Dia repeated in warm agreement, “you don’t say no.”

She continued to talk, telling Kanan in painful detail about Mari’s present, involving a surprise performance by professional idol Eli Ayase. Dia hadn’t fainted, but that hadn’t been for a lack of effort.

“Did you make an idiot out of yourself?”

“Oh, of course I did,” Dia quickly confirmed with a hearty laugh for good measure. Her pride was less an impenetrable brick wall than it once had been, vulnerable enough to let her laugh at herself. “She looked at me like I was insane when Mari got the two of us into a conversation. Can’t say I wouldn’t have felt the same way if I’d had to listen to someone try forming coherent sentences about my own life.”

Kanan smiled softly, eyes now trained back at the stars, having finally claimed their places in the night sky as the sun melted past the horizon. “I doubt she minded. Must’ve been cute.”

Dia scoffed. “You’re only saying that out of pity. I appreciate it though.”

“Any time,” Kanan replied wryly.

The conversation lulled for a moment, and without anything to say Dia found herself on her back, side by side with Kanan as they looked up at the night sky. The stars twinkled and glimmered, seeming to Dia so unreal as to be like lights strung up from a ceiling. It was hard to wrap her brain around; years spent under the suffocatingly black night sky of Tokyo had led her to forget that there was life up there.

“What constellation are you looking at?”

Some part of Dia fretted that she was somehow intruding on a private, intimate moment by asking, but Kanan only shrugged. The pale white glow of the moon shone down on Kanan’s face, softening her features and making them seem almost ethereal.

“Vulpecula.” She scooted a bit closer to Dia and pointed straight up, tracing stars together with her index finger. “See that triangle of bright stars straight above us? It’s right in the middle. It’s supposed to be a fox, and the star right over there is the goose it’s eating.”

Dia squinted. “I don’t see it.”

“Yeah, neither do I.” Kanan chuckled, dropping her hand limply to the sand between them. “But it’s kinda cool to think about.”

“It’s _morbid,_ is what it is,” Dia deadpanned.

“Maybe that’s why I like looking at it,” Kanan replied with an indiscernible laugh. “But it was on that star chart we used to have, remember? I picked it up from there.”

Dia frowned. “What ever happened to that thing?”

“Mari took it with her when she left for Italy. Wanted to keep it as a memento.”

“I’d say she earned custody of it,” Dia concluded. The thought was accompanied by an amused smile and a long, drawn-out sigh. It contained all that baggage they’d once held onto, hand in hand with the distance that had washed it away; by now the misery and heartache of their formative years felt more like a dream than any kind of reality they might have lived.

“How is she holding up?”

The question left Kanan’s lips sounding perfectly innocuous, but Dia knew better than to take it at face value. She paused, taking time to turn each word over before they were spoken in reply.

“She’s… been good. I think. She’s busy, as you know. I’m not really sure what with, but I know she’s on track to take over as CEO from her father in the next few years. Not that I found out from her,” she added dryly. “Read about it in a paper, I think.”

Kanan didn’t reply immediately, instead electing to continue staring upward.

“I had a dream recently,” she finally spoke up.

“About Mari-san?”

Kanan nodded, looking the slightest bit sage with the way her head bobbed up and down slowly.

“Yeah. It was… well, I don’t really know the context, but I was going through my old texts, and found this one that Mari had sent me for whatever reason, back when we graduated high school. It was so sweet and sincere, the kind of thing where I could just _hear_ her as I read it. And she was telling me how much she cared about me, and saying all this nice shit about how much I meant to her. It felt so nice hearing that, you know? Made me feel wanted.”

Dia laughed, struck by how uncharacteristically sentimental this all sounded coming from Kanan’s lips. “Doesn’t sound like the kind of dream I’d expect you to have.”

She regretted the choice of words, though, when Kanan turned to her with a look she could only fathom as being defensive. Should she have known that it was a dream Kanan would have? What other dreams _did_ Kanan have?

Or maybe that wasn’t any of Dia’s business to ponder. She let the questions slip from her mind either way.

“Well, I had it,” Kanan replied with an edge buried underneath her intonation. “When I woke up, I spent like an hour going back through all our text logs from the last few years. Never found it since it never existed, but I looked.”

“You know you could just call her and ask her if she misses you, right?”

“Well yeah, but like, this was _special_.” Kanan frowned, like she was taste-testing the word to check for its veracity in her mind. “Stuff like that isn’t the same if I ask for it. It’s less genuine.”

“That’s not a healthy way to think, Kanan-san.”

“I know, I know.” A long, exhaustively drawn-out sigh escaped from her lips to intermingle with the chilly ocean breeze. “I keep telling myself that, but then I keep thinking it anyways. It’s like a shitty cycle I can’t get out of.” She raised a finger to the side of her head, spinning it around for dramatic effect in an _‘I’m crazy’_ gesture. “Hearing you talk about spending time with Mari just made me think about that, I guess. It doesn’t really matter.”

“It does to _me_ ,” Dia replied. “And… for what it’s worth, I see her as little as you do. We hadn’t talked in months when that happened. I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings bringing it up.”

“No,” Kanan reassured her, any animosity having vanished from her voice. “You’re good. Just me being dumb and shit.”

Dia sighed. “You’re not ‘ _dumb and shit_ ,’” she replied with air quotes for effect. “You’re allowed to have feelings, Kanan-san.”

“Well, whatever.”

The way Kanan so blithely dismissed her made Dia twitch involuntarily, but she refrained from putting up a fight on the subject. She was intimately familiar with their particularly exhausting brand of bickering. They’d outgrown that; at least, Dia hoped they had.

One by one the stars flickered and dimmed, obstructed by a blanket of clouds that had started rolling in from the bay. Without anything else to look at, Kanan elected to sit up. Dia did the same.

“Anyways, she’s that busy, huh?” Kanan eventually said, a warm smile painted across her face. “I’m glad she’s making the most of herself.”

“You don’t sound like it,” Dia replied with an eyebrow raised skeptically. Kanan shrugged.

“My own feelings aren’t important.” When she turned to see Dia’s look grow increasingly harsh, however, she rushed to clarify with a sheepish laugh. “I just mean that I’m finished acting selfishly towards her. I’ve done more than enough of that, you know?”

“Well, you got what you wanted in the end.”

Kanan laughed, if slightly bitterly. “Careful what you wish for, right? I was right that she needed to leave. I just went about it so fucking badly.”

“I hope you’re not saying that in the hopes that I’ll reassure you otherwise,” Dia replied with a humored glance. “Besides, by the time you were right she didn’t need you to tell her that.”

“Yeah.” Kanan’s voice suddenly sounded weary. “I was scared that this town would suck her in and trap her. Never gave her enough credit to realize that she could have left whenever. By the end Uchiura basically spit her out, but I guess that was kinda my doing. For better or worse.” She turned to Dia. “Do you think she forgives me? Like, I know she has, but I mean… deep down, you know? In her heart.”

Dia only laughed. “Of course she does, Kanan-san. She loves you.”

“She really shouldn’t.”

The words landed like bricks as soon as they crept forth from Kanan’s mouth. Dia soured.

“She wouldn’t be happy if she heard you say that.”

“Oh, she’d be _pissed_ ,” Kanan replied with a hollow chuckle. “But I’ve always been good at pissing her off.”

“Kanan-san…”

Kanan paused, sighed. Her breath became a wisp, ethereal and palid white. It evaporated into the night air.

“Sorry.”

Dia put her hand on Kanan’s own and squeezed it tight, eliciting a small squeeze in turn. “You can’t keep beating yourself up over things that happened in high school. Mari-san’s moved on, you would do well to do the same.”

Kanan’s shoulders slumped. “You say that like all I have to do is snap a finger and get over my bullshit.”

“What I’m _saying_ ,” Dia replied tersely, “is that you can’t dwell on the past. I never said it was easy to stop.”

“It’s a hell of a lot easier when you don’t have to live in a town that does its best to remind you of every little fuckup,” Kanan shot back. “You try not beating yourself up when you have to see her hotel taunting you every hour of every day.”

At that Dia’s voice softened. “I- I’m sorry, Kanan-san, I didn’t think…”

Kanan’s hand wrapped around Dia’s shoulder, pulling her closer. “Ah fuck, no, please don’t apologize. I shouldn’t have said all that, Dia.”

“Yes you should have!” Dia shouted. “You’re never honest with me, Kanan. I feel so out of touch with you. Please, just… don’t take it back.” She leaned against Kanan, her head finding its home in the crook of Kanan’s neck. “You could leave, you know,” she whispered.

“I could,” Kanan agreed. “But I think this place has become, like... a crutch, maybe.”

“Even when it’s making you miserable?”

“Yeah. I don’t know. I’m not sure what I would do in a place like Tokyo. I’m not built for the city. Plus…” Kanan paused, her breath bated for the briefest moment. “I feel like I’m serving out some kind of sentence for all my mistakes. It’s comforting, in some fucked up way. Everyone else has moved on, meanwhile I get to keep stewing in my own bullshit. Like, uh.. the rock guy. With the hill.”

"... Sisyphus?"

"Yeah, that's the dude."

Dia would have found the slip-up amusing if she weren't so concerned about the confession it had padded out. Kanan’s hand fidgeted nervously in Dia’s own, straining to break free. Yet all the while she refused to let go of Dia, as if she were afraid Dia would cease to exist were she to do so.

“Can… can I confess something?”

“Of course, Kanan-san,” Dia replied earnestly. She saw the barriers between the two of them slowly fading, and she was impatient. She wanted to take to them with a sledgehammer - kind words would have to do. “You can tell me anything.”

“You’ll probably regret saying that,” Kanan cracked, but it was transparently a means of stalling. Her feet dug themselves into the sand, and she drew ever inward. Still, she didn’t let go of Dia’s hand. “I… I think about killing myself sometimes.” She paused, took a deep breath. “A lot of the time.”

In a second, Dia’s heart fell apart. It shattered into a million pieces for Kanan, each and every one scattering in the harsh wind of the night. Whatever alcohol remained in her system had been thoroughly cleansed by cold, sobering reality.

“Kanan-san…” It was such a pathetic reply, but what else could she say? How could she make this better when all the air had been sucked from her lungs?

Still, it was enough for Kanan to continue. “It’s not like I’m going to do anything,” she explained. Her voice sounded so hollow and sickly. “I mean, fuck… what would You and Chika do? They need me around to be their older sister. Maybe I’m just a pussy, but god, I don’t know.”

Dia shifted awkwardly towards Kanan so that they were pressed shoulder to shoulder. It may have been cold comfort, but it was something.

“You’re not a coward, Kanan-san,” Dia finally managed to choke out.

“Easy for you to say.” Kanan laughed dryly. “I think about it a hell of a lot for someone who couldn’t even bring herself to follow through.” She made a gun sign with her spare hand, pointing it at her temple. It was a gruesome image, and Dia flinched when Kanan motioned pulling the trigger.

“Is it fucked up that I calm myself down by thinking about how cold the metal would feel?”

“Kanan-san…”

“Or sometimes I think about taking the boat out into the bay and locking the ladder, then jumping in. I can’t really imagine I’d last very long, and then I’d get to at least die in the water-”

“KANAN-SAN!”

The outburst came suddenly, practically _shrieked_ , Dia’s voice cracking like a whip through the cold air. It stopped Kanan dead in her tracks, and an uneasy silence befell them as Dia stilled her racing heart.

“Please, Kanan-san, don’t- don’t say those things. I want to hear, but… you’re scaring me.”

She tried to sound as diplomatic as possible, but her voice just seemed pathetic and frail after her outburst. Kanan let go of her hand and drew inward, slowly gathering the pieces of the invisible wall that had withheld the space between them. Frantically, Dia tried to chase Kanan down into the recesses of her heart

“Can I help? What can I do?”

In reply Kanan gave a bitter laugh. She stood up in a single swift motion, dusting the sand off of her slacks with a few quick brushes of the hand. She reached out for Dia, but when Dia took hold of her hand, all she could think about was how cold it felt. Not that it mattered when Kanan so quickly let go, motioning for Dia to follow as she began to make her way back to the truck.

“You can get a good night’s rest,” she replied in a steady voice dripping with a fabricated kind of serenity. “Go home in the morning, get back to work. I’ll drop you off at your place.”

“Kanan-san, wait!” Dia rushed forward, practically tripping as she lunged to grab Kanan’s hand and tug on it, stopping her in her tracks. Kanan turned to her and leveled a gaze at her, one that she struggled to see through - yet the more she looked, the more she saw the despair buried deep within the violet of Kanan’s eyes, washed out and drowned by an entire ocean.

Maybe she’d never realized it was there before today. Maybe she had but couldn’t muster the courage to recognize it for what it was. With Mari far away in safer harbors, Dia had come to rely on Kanan as her support. She did so to such an extent that she’d begun to take her oldest friend for granted. Now that she knew Kanan had been hurting even more, she needed to return the favor.

“Let me support you, Kanan-san. I want to make this better.”

Kanan tried to tug her hand away, but Dia wouldn’t let go. She held firm, even as her feet dragged a trail through the sand.

“Dia, let go. You’re acting like a kid.”

“I don’t care!” Dia protested. Her face scrunched up, but she couldn’t even bring herself to care that she was only proving Kanan’s point.

“Just get over yourself, Dia! I shouldn’t have said anything, okay? I never should have stopped at this fucking beach.”

“I- I’m glad you did, Kanan-san,” Dia replied. “I care about you so much, I hope you know that.”

“God, I really wish you didn’t,” Kanan shot back with a weak, pitiful laugh. “Everything would be so much easier if you never came back for me.”

Dia tugged Kanan’s hand in reply, but Kanan looked surprised when it was toward the truck. “I’m cold,” Dia explained without an ounce of give on her face. “You’re not getting off the hook.”

“Right.”

Kanan wordlessly started the engine and cranked up the heat as soon as they’d gotten into the car. Dia curled up on her seat and shivered - she hadn’t realized how harshly the wind had been nipping at her skin, not while she’d been engrossed in conversation with Kanan. Now, she was hyperaware of everything.

And freezing.

“I should’ve given you my jacket,” Kanan said with a sigh as she squeezed the latch under her seat and pushed it back, giving her room to recline. “I can’t believe you were out there so long in just a dress shirt.”

“I’m resilient,” Dia replied with a huff. Kanan only smiled, leaving a silence to fester until Dia finally spoke up again. “You said you wished I wouldn’t come back for you.”

It sounded less like of an accusation than it truly was, tempered down into something resembling a simple statement, a space for Kanan to open up. Still, they both knew that nothing between them was ever simple.

“You’re wasting your potential every second you spend here, Dia.”

“And you?”

Kanan exhaled through her nose. “Potential would be a strong word for me on a good day.” The corners of her cracked lips curled upward. “Haven’t had many good days lately.”

“You have more going for you than you think,” Dia offered. “You’re smart, you’re empathetic, you’re trustworthy, you’re-”

“Do you really think for a minute that any of the shit you’re saying is actually true?” Kanan suddenly snapped. She didn’t even look Dia in the eyes; they were glued to the steering wheel, her knuckles burning a bright white holding onto it. “Towns like Uchiura chew people up and spit them out. The only reason I’m still here is because I’m too stupid and stubborn to let it do its damn job.”

“So what, you’re just going to die here?”

 _There_ was the hostility, the bickering and sharp tongues that they’d always worn so well in each other’s company. Dia stared at Kanan, and soon enough Kanan looked back. Any illusion of give between them had proven to be just that: illusory.

“That’s the idea, yeah.”

“And am I supposed to let you?”

“ _Yes,_ ” Kanan spat. “Mari already moved the fuck on, but you keep coming back here like nothing ever happened. Like I didn’t nearly ruin your dreams. It’s driving me absolutely insane. I want you to hate me, Dia. If you hate me, then every night I've spent lying awake wasn't just me making up all these paranoid fears."

Dia looked at Kanan apprehensively, her lips struggling against her to form a question she knew she shouldn't ask.

"What are your fears?"

Kanan laughed, every puff of air full of spite and malice, aimed not at Dia but seemingly at herself. "That you only spend time with me because you pity me for never having moved on, because you're still attached to some idea that we're supposed to stick together. And that you're growing resentful of me for it."

Dia felt her emotions simmer and fester inside of her, building up until they boiled over into a storm of righteous indignancy. Suddenly, she found herself resentful, not of Kanan’s presence but of the way Kanan thought about her. "Is that seriously how you see me? You think so little of me that you'd assume I'd spend so much time with someone I hate?"

"At least it'd mean you would finally leave me alone," Kanan muttered under her breath.

"When did you get like this?!"

"I've ALWAYS been like this, Dia! I was like this from day one, but then I didn’t have you two to keep me above the water anymore. Everything fell apart, I became this empty husk of a human being, and then I couldn't keep my goddamn death wish to myself anymore."

Kanan's voice became weaker and ever more staccato as she continued on, struggling to force her truth out between gasps of air. She bowed her head, resting her forehead on the faux-leather of the steering wheel.

"And I spent all this time desperately searching for a sign that I could open up and be honest, but every time it ever came I got so scared of finally making you leave for good that I let it go. I kept crawling back into my lonely fucking shell and living my lonely fucking life until you showed up today and I couldn't hold it the fuck in anymore."

Somewhere, at some point lost to time, Dia had thought the waters of Kanan’s heart a calm sea. Serene, peaceful, crystalline.

Now, she saw the tempest for what it was.

Dia’s heart beat at a marathon pace, thump after thump reverberating through her chest. She stared out the windshield, trying desperately to find something to say that could make this better.

_(In her mind’s eye, she sees Kanan stepping into the clear ocean and inhaling the saltwater into her lungs. She drowns, her body disintegrating before Dia’s eyes.)_

She pressed a hand to Kanan’s back, rubbing it gently. Kanan didn’t push her away, but she didn’t give any sign of approval either.

_(Kanan steps in front of a train on its way to Numazu. Dia can’t bring herself to call Mari.)_

Dia parted her lips, struggled to draw a breath. “You don’t have to be alone anymore, Kanan-san.”

A weak laugh. “Would it be too much to ask if you could put me out of my misery right now?”

_(Kanan pulls a gun out of the glove box and-)_

“Oh, Kanan…” Without forewarning, Dia felt a tear prick at her eyes, then another, one by one until they began falling down her cheeks, staining the skin and painting it an ugly hue. “Kanan, I’m so sorry…”

Her hands gripped at her face in a vain attempt to stem the tide, but it wasn’t enough. She turned to Kanan, looking between her fingers as Kanan met her gaze. Her eyes widened in realization and she lunged forward over the middle compartment, taking Dia into her arms.

“No, Dia,” she whispered frantically. “Please don’t cry, I- I promise things are going to be okay.”

“How could you say that?!” Dia snapped. Her voice cracked and faltered, betraying the ache in her heart. “I’m so scared for you, Kanan…”

Kanan sighed, not even flinching at the acidity of Dia’s voice. She shifted herself and brought Dia’s head lower so that she could cradle it in her arms, allowing Dia to completely break down into her shoulder. She cried out as the tears came harder, sniffling and whimpering. It was a side of her that nobody else had ever seen - only Kanan had ever carried that innate ability to lure Dia into vulnerability.

"I shouldn't... I shouldn't be crying," Dia sniveled between sobs. "You're the one that's hurting, Kanan-san, and I'm just here making a mess of your shirt. It's not fair."

Kanan just began lovingly stroking her hair, combing her fingers through it with a soothing rhythm. Dia desperately wished she could see what Kanan looked like then and there, but in her peripheral vision, all she could see was dashboard and cold, empty sky. Idly, she wondered if Vulpecula still lay hidden behind those clouds, eternally damned to lie in wait for its prey. She wished it was still visible.

"No, Dia, keep crying. It's okay. I want to see you like this."

"But why? It's not fair, Kanan," she repeated emphatically. She wasn’t sure if she wanted Kanan to notice that she'd dropped the honorific for what might've been the first time in her life, or not. She wasn’t even sure why she'd done that.

"It's been a long time since I cried, Dia. Sometimes I wonder if I can anymore," Kanan added with a pitifully weak laugh as punctuation. "Maybe that's what I need, to have someone else cry for me. It's nice." Pause, exhale. “You look cute like this,” she cracked. Dia could hear the wry smile in the contours of Kanan’s voice.

“You’re deflecting again,” Dia replied with her own laugh. “But… enjoy it. No one else gets to see me like this, you know.”

Kanan’s reply didn’t come in the form of words, but in her head bowed, almost as if in reverence. She pressed her lips to Dia’s head, planting a gentle kiss.

“... Kanan?”

“I like when you call me that,” Kanan replied softly. “Can you say it again?”

Though her instincts told her that her cheeks should have been reaching a fever red pitch, the truth was that it came forth as naturally as the wind blew. “ _Kanan_ ,” she whispered, letting her tongue take its time forming each syllable like their kanji held all the weight of the world. It felt right to say it so plainly, so vulnerably. “I’m sorry, I don’t know why I didn’t use the honorific, I just-”

Whatever excuses she might have conjured were swallowed whole when, before she could even think, she found cold, cracked lips pressed against her own. Her eyes went wide and her heart began beating straight out of her chest, but she couldn’t bring herself to pull away, no matter the shock. It was only when Kanan pulled away and began searching her eyes for any sign of approval that Dia allowed herself to process what had happened.

“... Kanan?”

There was so much swirling around in Kanan’s eyes: longing, vulnerability, hope, fear. When the last time Dia had seen her eyes so alive was, she couldn’t quite say.

“I- I’m sorry, I just thought…” Kanan sputtered, her gaze a transparent plea for empathy. “You looked…”

“I looked _what_?” Dia pressed her fingers to her lips, attempting to fathom the space between them and Kanan’s own.

“You looked vulnerable! And you called me Kanan, and I thought that maybe…” She buried her face in her hands, as if she hoped her actions would all just go away so long as she couldn’t visualize them. When her voice returned, it was muffled. “Oh god, _vulnerable?_ What am I saying?”

“What… what did you think, Kanan?”

Finally, after a few excruciating moments, Kanan looked up to meet Dia’s gaze, to see tears continuing to paint trails down Dia’s cheeks. Kanan’s mouth opened to form words, but the silence that they should have filled was left yawning. She looked as though she were choking on what she wanted to say; Dia reached out a hand to try and provide some small creature comfort, but Kanan shrugged it off.

“No, you don’t understand, I…” Her eyes squeezed shut, her fists clenched. Dia’s breath bated, as though she might fracture the weight of this moment with even a single breath. Finally, _finally,_ Kanan spoke once more.

“... I love you, Dia. And I thought that maybe you felt the same.”

Dia’s lips parted and hung open as a pit began festering deep in her stomach, the gravity of Kanan’s confession sinking in with all the grace of a brick.

“What am I supposed to say to that? How could you tell me you love me after everything you just shared?” The reply came almost immediately, somewhere between exasperation and desperation. She was indignant that now, after everything Kanan had told her, only _now_ did she learn this truth.

Yet with that came a kind of pleading, a tacit request for Kanan to bridge that gap that was growing yet again between them.

“I don’t know,” Kanan whispered. “I don’t know, I just… god, I really fucked this up. I don’t know what I want, Dia. I want you to hate me and never come back but I also want to hold onto you and never let go. I’ve spent the last few years of my life keeping time by the rate your texts come in, and it’s so exhausting.” Pause, exhale. “I’m being so selfish tonight. I’m sorry.”

“... Why me?” Even Dia was surprised that she had asked that question, one borne purely of emotional instinct. “I always thought you loved Mari-san.”

“I thought I did. Back in high school.” Kanan’s fingertips drummed nervously against the steering wheel. A drawn-out sigh escaped her lips. “That wasn’t love, though. It was me being possessive. I was head over heels for a version of her that I thought I was supposed to save. It never existed, but… well, you knew that already.” Kanan let out a pitifully weak laugh. She sounded so tired.

“And what about me?”

“I guess I realized that I was the one that needed saving. When you kept coming back, I grew to rely on that so much. It was terrifying to be that attached to you, but… every day you weren’t here started eating at me. Mari’s too large for life, or at least mine. But you show up at my door like it’s nothing and get drunk and pour your heart out to me. You cry,” she added wryly as she pointed to the tear stain on her shirt.

“And all those nights spent listening to your problems and being the one who got to see the real you made me feel like I was worth something, like I was a good person. I wanted to be there for you so badly, Dia. Every single fucking minute of every day. How could I not have fallen in love with you?”

Dia felt herself tearing up again, but she steeled herself. One part of her wanted to fall into Kanan’s arms and say yes, _god yes,_ but she knew that wasn’t right. A rush of emotion gave way to sobering reality, one where Kanan was a mess and Dia couldn’t put her back together with a fleeting “ _I love you.”_ So once again, Dia found herself returning to the kind of calculation that she shouldered like she was Atlas himself.

Her response was measured with care and deliberation, turned over ad nauseum until she felt like she could muster the will to say it without her voice faltering. “I can’t feel the same way,” she slowly replied. “Not when you can’t love yourself.”

Kanan looked as dejected as she could have, but slowly, minute by minute, the meaning of Dia’s words began to dawn on her. She looked to Dia, a glimmer of hope adrift in the violet of her eyes.

“Does that mean…?”

A hand reaching for the steering wheel to pry one of Kanan’s own off, lacing their fingers together. “It means that I’m scared, Kanan. I have _always_ loved you, just like I’ve always loved Mari-san. You hold a place in my heart that no one else does, but… my kind of love isn’t the same as yours, Kanan.”

“I can learn yours,” Kanan interjected with earnest. “I can do anything. Please, Dia,” she whispered. Her hand squeezed Dia’s, but Dia couldn’t return the gesture. Not yet.

“Call Mari-san.”

It was a simple enough command that Kanan was momentarily left slack-jawed as the gears in her brain began to visibly crank. Dia herself became adrift in thought, tasting the name on her tongue.

Mari-san? _Mari?_ The honorific didn’t feel as right as it had mere moments ago, but that distance had yet to be closed. It could come with time, perhaps with Kanan reaching out as well - Mari deserved that much from them both. For the present moment, though, the gulf between _Kanan_ and _Mari-san_ was a reflection of reality, of the way Kanan grasped at Dia’s hand.

“I can’t just call her, you know how busy she is-”

“And she’ll make time for you,” Dia interrupted forcibly. “But call her. Apologize if you want, I don’t care. Just start moving on, Kanan. _Please_.” Now came the squeeze; Dia was pretty sure that she caught Kanan flinching in pain for a brief moment, and she lessened her grip, sheepishly.

“I can’t just do that, Dia…”

“Yes you _can_ ,” Dia replied. Her heart ached and panged, yet she continued all the same. “I’m so scared for you. How am I supposed to be closer to you if I can’t even trust that you’ll be alive tomorrow?”

“I-” Kanan’s voice frayed as she looked Dia in the eyes. “I can try. I’m so sorry, Dia. About… all those things I said. About wanting you to leave. About wanting to die,” she added in the faintest whisper.

And with that, Dia fell into Kanan. She reached across the console and wrapped her arms around her oldest, dearest friend, squeezing as tight as she possibly could. She knew this couldn’t last, not with the state Kanan was in - but she wasn’t so heartless that she couldn’t push that aside for the time being. Her trust in Kanan could be enough, at least for now.

“I don’t care, Kanan. I’m not letting you leave me.” Dia pressed closer and closer, as much as the console between them would allow. Kanan rested her head in the crook of Dia’s neck, and her breath came hot and heavy against it. “I can’t promise what will happen to us, not yet. But please, promise me that you can learn to love me for _me_ , not just because I’m the only thing you can hold onto.”

“I promise,” Kanan whispered in reply, her voice achingly tender.

She wrapped her arms around Dia, one hand finding purchase in Dia’s hair and the other at the small of her back. It made Dia feel so safe, and despite her better instincts she melted into Kanan’s embrace. That she knew this was an expression of love, pure and unadulterated, gave the action so much more weight than it had always carried. There was a shameful kind of indulgence in allowing herself to bask in it, but it was more than that; the night had brought back memories of those years spent in Mari’s absence so long ago, rendering them in excruciatingly vivid detail.

The way Kanan couldn’t look Dia in the eyes when they saw Mari off, the way Dia ignored her texts for months afterwards. They had wasted so much time on stubborn pride and bitter regrets, but now they were too old and worn down to fall victim to those same vices. Kanan would need room to heal soon enough, but right now she needed comfort; if nothing else, Dia could grant her that much.

The waves lapped at the shore of Uchiura, pulled closer and closer in a futile attempt at reaching the full moon. Its pale aura lit up the bay, the light refracted and diffused by the clouds overhead. The view reminded Dia of all those late nights spent with Kanan and Mari as kids, but to her weary eyes it now seemed so much more lifelike.

So as unsure of her feelings as she was, as frightened and nervous as she felt for where this might lead, she pressed her lips against Kanan’s own. She didn’t want to be so distant from Kanan anymore, not tonight. Not when Kanan needed her.

Kanan paused for a second, stunned into stillness, but it didn’t take long for her to reciprocate. Her tongue slipped out to taste Dia, and Dia’s lips parted to grant it passage. As the kiss deepened, slow and meandering yet nonetheless passionate, Dia pulled them closer than they had ever been before. Her hands roamed Kanan’s calloused skin, each imperfection a reminder of their history: scarred and repaired by the body to the best of its ability, but never quite gone. Her fingers stalled when they ran across a faint scar on Kanan’s forearm, and she murmured into Kanan’s lips as she traced circles around it lazily.

“What is this from?”

Kanan pulled away just barely, enough to take a breath. “I fell on a rock when we were practicing our freshman year, remember? It was right after we formed Aqours and we didn’t have the roof yet. That was the last time we tried the beach for a while,” she added with a wry laugh under her breath.

“I don’t remember,” Dia replied idly. “I feel like I should have.”

“Nah,” Kanan replied lazily as she pulled Dia’s head closer to hers. Her carefree tone sounded no less fabricated than it had at the start of this long night, but now it felt less like an evasion and more like a promise of what was to come. “It’s in the past, don’t worry about it.”

Tonight, Dia would go home and think, much as she always did. She would think about Mari and Kanan, about the space between the three of them and what she had sacrificed to stitch their wounds back together time and time again. She would think about Mari’s pure heart and Kanan’s old soul, and how she’d always loved them both so dearly for those things. It was a love she’d come to wear like a second skin, so comfortable and familiar that at times it was all she knew.

Once she had finally fallen asleep, she would dream of Kanan disintegrating into the ocean and wake up in a cold sweat, sobbing quietly and clutching at her blanket. She would be terrified that she hadn’t done enough, that the impassiveness she’d pledged to leave in her past so long ago would be Kanan’s death.

But as Kanan kissed her again in a worn-down pickup truck parked on Uchiura’s winding shoreline, she told herself they would be okay. The rest could wait until tomorrow.


End file.
